The world wide web of abuse

Chris Goddard

Across the globe, the organised crimes of serial child rapists have been met with disorganisation by careless institutions.

THE stories from around the world are eerily similar. Children raped by perpetrators who are then sheltered by the organisations that gave them access to their victims. The names of the organisations are almost interchangeable.

In the US, one of the coaches of Penn State University football team has been found guilty of more than 40 counts of sexual assault against 10 boys over 15 years. Jerry Sandusky used his influence as a coach, and his own charity, to choose his victims.

Then, just weeks ago, the so-called ''perversion files'' from the Boy Scouts of America went online. The Los Angeles Times is establishing a database of thousands of perpetrators over nearly a century, expelled from the scouts because of actual or suspected child sexual assault.

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In Britain, two more inquiries have been ordered into the organised abuse of children in children's homes in North Wales. The first will review the original inquiry by Sir Ronald Waterhouse in the 1990s. It is alleged that Waterhouse ignored allegations about at least one senior political figure. The other inquiry will investigate police responses, or lack thereof, to the crimes reported.

Then there is Jimmy Savile, the late BBC entertainer. Scotland Yard is pursuing more than 300 lines of inquiry into sexual assaults. Savile, it is alleged, used his position as a ''charitable'' celebrity to gain access to victims in hospitals, schools and children's homes. The BBC itself is under scrutiny, with its director-general George Entwistle quitting his post at the weekend.

Here in Victoria, the parliamentary committee of inquiry into child abuse in religious and other non-government organisations is sitting, an inquiry savaged as ''secretive'' and ''shallow'' by The Age's religion editor, Barney Zwartz, on this page last Wednesday.

Across the world, the organised crimes of serial child rapists have been met with the disorganised responses of careless institutions. Organisations are corrupted, whistleblowers silenced, and victims are betrayed. Once again we must ask, why?

There is an unwillingness to recognise that children are ''perfect victims''. The US Department of Justice acknowledges that crimes against children are ''among the most difficult'' to investigate, because: children are unable to protect themselves and reluctant to report; perpetrators exploit their emotional bonds with the children; there are rarely witnesses and is seldom evidence; children are seen as ''less credible''; and, the courts were designed for adults.

Even this summary does not fully explain children's vulnerability, not least because the predatory priests, Scoutmasters and entertainers, although separated by thousands of kilometres, know this list by heart.

Every serial rapist, furthermore, knows that some children are especially vulnerable.

In evidence to the parliamentary inquiry, Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Graham Ashton described the techniques of rapist priests. Children with only one parent were especially vulnerable. He described how priests specialised in sexually assaulting children after they had suffered a traumatic event, for example, ''immediately following funerals of family members''.

Ashton said that until 1996, when new ''procedures'' were introduced by the Catholic Church, ''alleged offenders'' were regularly transferred to other parishes, victims and their families were persuaded to stay silent, and school teachers who urged action against offenders were silenced. Even discovering a priest in the act of sexually assaulting a child was ignored.

He presented an analysis of police data on sexual assaults in religious organisations, going back to 1956. Since 1996 more than 600 cases of criminal assault had been confirmed by the church, but not one report made by the church to police. It is extraordinary that this is the first analysis by the police of these organised crimes against children. It is impossible to understand why the Catholics' ''perversion files'' have not been seized. After all, it is not difficult to imagine what these files contain.

The ''perversion files'' on Kevin O'Donnell alone would require a semi-trailer. According to Broken Rites, from 1942 to 1992 O'Donnell committed crimes against children in each of his eight parishes. As Broken Rites suggest, the victims were not confined to those parishes because, like Savile, he was free to roam, to use his ''uniform'' to attack other children.

The public release of every Catholic ''perversion file'' is but a first step. Every church, every scout group, every football club must understand that there will be an organised, systematic response to crimes against children. That the criminals and those who protect them will henceforth be jailed, as in the US. Victims, their families and their communities, must be cared for and returned to health. Guilty organisations must pay the full costs of care.

Imagine for a moment that the 40 or more deaths in Ballarat were caused by coronary failure due to an environmental hazard, not suicide after assaults by priests. There would be teams of scientists sifting medical records, conducting tests, developing prevention strategies. And if the environmental hazard was found to be deliberately introduced? The police would be demanding special powers.

More than 15 years ago, writing of the inquiry in North Wales, I suggested that those who want to abuse children are prepared to make greater efforts than those who are supposed to protect children. The child molesters, be they priests, Scout leaders or football coaches, are still winning. Children, their families and communities, are still the losers.

Dr Chris Goddard is director of Child Abuse Prevention Research Australia, a collaboration between the Australian Childhood Foundation and the Monash Injury Research Institute. He appeared as an expert witness before the Victorian parliamentary inquiry and is on the advisory board of the Queensland child protection inquiry.

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